Death of Barclay Howard

FROM THE SCOTTISH GOLF UNION WEBSITE:
The Scottish Golf Union is sad to advise that Scottish Internationalist Barclay Howard has passed away. He was 55.
Howard, who hailed from Johnstone, was deemed one of Scotland’s finest amateur golfers. He lost his battle against Leukaemia after being diagnosed with the disease more than a decade ago.
The pinnacle of Howard’s long and illustrious golfing career was leading the Open Championship after eight holes during the first round at Royal Troon in 1997, eventually securing the Silver Medal as the leading amateur.
In the same year Howard won the Scottish Stroke Play title and represented Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup for a second time, before he first became ill.
Howard was just seven years old when he was admitted to junior membership, and the Scottish Boys Championship at North Berwick in 1966 was one of his first experiences of tournament golf. His well documented love of golf continued seeing him play for Scottish and British Youths teams as well as taking the honour of captaining both in 1974.
From there, the Cochrane Castle member continued to distinguish his career as a prolific winner of open championships which led to further representation for Scotland at men’s level from 1979 to 1997. In 2006 further honours ensued when he captained the SGU Youths team in the European Team Championships - as well as a team of leading amateurs that took on Bernard Gallacher’s pro’s in the Bunkered Match Play Challenge in 2004.
Howard will be a great loss to Scottish Golf and the SGU would like to extend their condolences to Barclay Howard’s family and friends at this sad time.